Maybe Christmas Hope Isn’t That Bad, He Thought
by Isabelle
Summary: ‘Twas the night of Christmas, and Chuck Bass found himself in a hospital waiting room with his least favorite person, waiting for his son to be born. A Secret Santa exchange gift.


**Maybe Christmas Hope Isn't That Bad, He Thought**

By Isabelle

Rating: R for language

Summary: 'Twas the night of Christmas, and Chuck Bass found himself in a hospital waiting room with his least favorite person, waiting for his son to be born.

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me; all belongs to CW.

A/N: A little Secret Santa present for Gina, I'm glad you liked it :)

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The story of Chuck Bass and how he gained hope started on an evening unlike any other, as it was Christmas and snow had started to fall on New York City.

The inherent problem with the feeling of Christmas is that it makes a man hope; gives a man a need to make it, to survive. Gives all little hopeful humans the need to cuddle and drink hot cocoa and wear scarves. This is one of the many problems that he can pin point about Christmas. He'd been dealing with said dilemmas for a while now – ever since she and her well-shaped ass shoved into his life. Decorating rooms, befriending his secretary, ordering his chauffer around, pushing him to be the man that he never wished to be. That most certainly his father never saw in him. But she was stubborn and, using her stealth and vernacular abilities, she wound herself around his life until his life became _her_.

It was bad enough that she had gotten him to marry her – he was still limping from that one. Now he had family dinners, family vacations, family holidays, family family _family_ – it was completely out of control. He was a walking marshmallow. She planned out things a year or more in advance; everything needed to be in orderly fashion. He, being who he was, lived to mix things up for her, take her out of order, just to see her fume and throw pillows at him from across their newly decorated apartment.

"_No scotch tonight, Bass. My mother will be over."_

"_Whatever you say, dear."_

And she would find him with Nate, half drunk and very in debt over a badly played poker game.

"_You promised!"_

"_I lied."_

"_I hate you!"_

"_No you don't, find a new line."_

"_Fine. I don't hate you. But you're not getting any tonight."_

To say that she had him by the balls was an understatement, because nothing hurt him more than being denied the pleasure of burying himself balls-deep into her and taking a moment to contemplate that he would have this for the rest of his life.

Being the quick little learner that she was, she had found out early in their relationship that he was _slightly_ addicted to her cunt juice. During their bad fights – when neither admitted to wrongs for three days in a row – she would touch herself until her fingers _smelled_ of her and then casually graze his nose with her fingertips as she adjusted his bowtie. He could hunt her in a darkened room; he could find her anywhere.

Crafty little bitch, that's what she was.

He had no choice in those moments than to give in, admit defeat, live to fight another day, and most certainly live to fuck her blindly now.

He should've walked – no, RUN – at the very beginning. But no. No. He had decided to pursue her and persuade her and perfect their perfect imperfection until here he was, years later after that moment that he delightfully took her virginity, waiting in a waiting room. His hair in disarray, showing a five o'clock shadow, wearing mismatched shoes and waiting. He hated waiting.

Little did that Bass boy know at age sixteen, as he slid home into her that day in the limo, that she would attach herself to his skin like a leech and just stay there. Sucking the Chuck Bass right out of him.

He was rightfully angry with her for making him go through the mess that was growing up, changing, developing and maturing. It was downright disgusting the way that he consciously made sure she was well and happy. He didn't recognize himself. He would text her while in the office to make sure she was meeting him for dinner. He couldn't even remember the taste of another woman's pussy.

All he saw, ate, breathed was Blair. Blair. Blair. Blair.

"I should've left it at that, you know." He said out loud. The person next to him shifted uncomfortably. "I should've left her and Nathaniel alone."

"Um…"

"But she's addicting, you know? After that night, all I kept thinking was how I wanted her. It became this obsession and then things started happening to my stomach –"

"Chuck –"

"She didn't want me back then, no matter how she purred my name."

"Please stop."

"What can a guy do?"

"He can stop talking."

"I mean, I had always thought she was hot. She was searing hot, always hiding that naughty librarian underneath the couture and bitchiness."

"Oh, my God."

"We've played naughty librarian."

"…"

"That's the problem, you see!"

"I see a lot of problems."

"If she had been some stiff bitch, it would've been different. But she's worse than I am!"

"Make me deaf, God."

"And that's what landed us in this position to begin with!"

"I… I –"

"She couldn't wait that day, couldn't stop rubbing herself against me –"

"I can't believe this –"

"She was on me before I could even unwrap the condom –"

"Why, why, why?"

"Because I'd been out of the country for a week."

"No, I didn't mean –"

"And that's how she got –"

"Pregnant. I know. Please stop talking. I understand I have to be supportive, but if I have to hear about yours and Blair's sex life for a minute longer, I may commit mass murder," Dan said in one breath, his eyes tightly closed.

"Might do you some good," he snapped, beginning to pace. Back and forth, back and forth. Everyone yelled at him to sit down, but he ignored them.

Nearly five hours and a lot of terrifying conversations with one wanna-be writer later, he was _finally_ given some news.

"It's a girl!" It was Serena who came around the corner dressed in the yellow scrubs they had made her wear. And she jumped into his arms and hugged him so hard, his trachea felt numb.

But he didn't mind. His arms were limp at his sides, and all he could think over and over was that he had a girl.

_Another_ girl.

It was bad enough with _one_ girl in his life, taking over everything. Now he had to deal with _two_. They would completely castrate him. He had hoped up until this moment that it would be a boy, because he could handle a boy.

But a _girl_?

This was a problem. A HUGE problem.

"Chuck, say something!" Serena shook him. Literally.

"C-can I see her?" Was all his foolish mouth could say, because all he could think of was the boys she would attract if she looked even a quarter as good as her mom did when she was a teenager.

"Yes!" Serena shoved him in the right direction, and he threw one last pleading look at Dan, who had been placed there as moral support since Nate was out of the country. Dan did a shit job, if you asked him, but no one seemed to want to ask him anything anymore. He was just handed things.

And now he had been handed a little girl.

He didn't know what to do with her. He didn't even know how to begin. He was about to hyperventilate; he couldn't see straight. Where was Blair? His numb feet took him to the door where he knew she lay, and he had to give himself a little pep talk before he entering.

_You are now a father. Fathers are strong, emotionally detached – no, that was your father. What is a father supposed to act like? Can't be like Harold, he folds too easily to Blair's whims and desires. Can't be like Rufus, before long I'll be making pancakes that taste like cardboard, wearing flannel, not washing my hair, and pretending I'm a musician. Can't be like the Captain, can't be like Mr. Van der Woodsen, can't be like anything. No model, no code, no fucking idea –_

His thoughts halted when he opened the door to find a very tired-looking yet elated Blair on the bed, and a nurse adjusting the little moving bundle in her arms. The bundle was pink, and an even pinker face peered up at Blair. Blair had no clue he had entered; her eyes were fixated on the bundle. For the first time in his life, he felt invisible when it came to Blair.

He felt he should leave. Walk away. Let her have her moment. Come back when he figured out how to be a dad. Since he had no clue now and could royally fuck it up.

"Are you brooding?" It was _her_ voice. That little voice that that had instigated his entire metamorphosis.

"I… I was going to go –"

"Come here, Bass."

Like a command given from owner to slave, he dutifully acquiesced and his numb, lost and reluctant feet followed her order.

Before he knew it, he was standing before her. Her face was still concentrated on the small bundle, which was yawning widely at the moment with its eyes tightly shut.

"Isn't she _perfect_, Chuck? She's absolutely _perfect_." Someone must have given his wife drugs, and he was sure they had handed her the wrong baby. This bundle looked _nothing_ like either of them. For starters, there was only two parts of Blair that were pink: her nipples and her pussy, because her mouth tended to be scorching red hot. He wasn't particularly pink; he was more _beige_ in color. But this _bundle_ was _pink_. It was obviously not their child. Someone had misplaced their child and played a horrible joke on him by giving him _another_ girl while hiding the rightful boy somewhere within the vicinity.

"Do you want to hold her? It makes it more real then." Blair suggested as she finally turned to study him.

He cleared his throat as he took her in and, his mind quickly flashed to that young girl he had first seen in the playground at age six. With bouncing brown curls, pale skin and ruby lips. He'd developed an unnatural fascination with her, and when he realized she wouldn't take her as a boyfriend, quickly decided to be her friend. The bundle in her arms moved, and his thoughts shifted as the nurse helped Blair place the small bundle in his arms. It was warm, and it _moved_. He looked back at Blair to see her smiling brilliantly, her head leaning back on the pillows, exhausted. A smile – the faintest of smiles – began to appear in his face, fully out of his control. He'd made a good investment that day in the park – age six, bouncing brown curls.

"You make a handsome daddy, Charles. Merry Christmas," she whispered, and the bundle shifted, bringing his attention back to _it_.

He looked past all of the messy hostility within him and realized that in his arms now lay a tiny little human. Tiny. The size of his favorite pair of shoes. Tiny. The size of Blair's jewelry case; the one for her 'in season' pieces. Tiny. The size of his breakfast plate. Tiny, so tiny that he was afraid he would hurt it. Accidentally drop it. Accidentally squish it. Accidentally forget her somewhere and she'd die of abandonment. Accidentally confuse her with another tiny pink human. Take the wrong one home. Blair would hate him forever.

And then something happened. Something that was not in the pre-planned Bass notion of stability. Something unaccounted for. Something… _warm_.

A tiny hand popped out of the little bundle. It was pink and bare and wrinkly. Instinctually, he reached out for it, and it latched on to him. Small, pink wrinkly fingers wrapped themselves around his much larger one and held on. Something was _holding_ on to him. _Someone _was holding on to him. _Depending_ on him.

A large, thick, inexplicable lump rose in his throat. So forceful, potent and steady that he felt he couldn't breathe.

"_Have some hope, Bass," Blair had said when he began to panic the moment he found out about her pregnancy. That had been a long night. A long night of comfort and reassurance._

"Hope," he whispered.

"Hmm?" Blair asked, perking up at the first words from him.

"Her name… Her name is Hope."

"But, Chuck, we agreed –"

"Hope," he repeated. She studied him and his insistence. "You once told me to have some hope. Well, thank you for giving it to me."

A smile broke out over her face, a dream burst to life in her heart, and she nodded.

"Hope Cornelia Bass Waldorf." She closed her eyes briefly. "Fit for a Queen."

He nodded. He sat down, slowly, carefully, his finger still held, next to his wife, changer of his life, giver of life.

"She's pink," he commented.

"So are you," she countered.

"Am not. Are you sure this one is ours?"

She laughed melodically. "What? Do you think I hid the boy and, as a punishment, gave you a girl?"

He cursed inwardly. She knew him all too well.

"You're going to be a great dad, trust me," she whispered against him, looking over his shoulder at the still-sleeping pink bundle.

_All_ too well.

"I don't know how," he confessed. "Don't really have a model to go by."

She pulled back a bit and stared at him, confused, bemused, and amused.

"Chuck Bass… I have never known you to be a follower. If anything, you've paved your own path." He turned his head to look at her. Slightly _hopefully._

"I don't know how," he stated once more, a mere whisper.

"We'll figure it out," she said to him, and he believed her. "Maybe Hope can teach us."

The bundle in his arms made a little noise, and they both turned to look down at her.

So it was that little Hope Bass made her very first attempt to gain her parent's full attention. She was born on Christmas Day, cleansing her father's palate for the love of the holiday and making it even more special for her mother. To her parents, she was the smartest little girl in the planet – even if all she did was kick, drool, eat, sleep and poop. She wasn't always pink; she eventually turned a lovely _beige_ color. Her hair grew long and strong and curled like her mother's, but her eyes remained slick and slanted like her father's. Her lips oddly enough belonged to her grandfather Harold, who was proud to point this out to anyone who either willingly or unwillingly listened. She demanded to be dressed in the finest of dresses and would loudly sob and cry whenever a Humphrey tried to pick her up. This, her father secretly told her mother, was something he had taught her to do.

She was agile and naughty, yet prim and perfect.

Life was perfect for Chuck until his dark-haired little princess was caught staring dreamily at the elder Dominic Vaskovan, who was three years older than her and would come over once in a while to help his mother clean.

"Isn't he _handsome_, Daddy?" She asked him, her face flushed with happiness.

Chuck Bass felt a warm feeling seep into him, but this time it was for a completely different reason. She had her mother in her, noticing _handsome_ at the age of five when she shouldn't have. This was a problem. This was a HUGE problem.

But the story of Dominic and Hope and how they fell in love is for another time. For another place. For perhaps another holiday. Merry Christmas, and to all, goodnight.

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The beginning.


End file.
